Merneptah

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The fourth ruler of Egypt's Nineteenth Dynasty, a son of Ramesses II who reigned in the late thirteenth century BCE
2. An ancient Egyptian king of the Nineteenth Dynasty, the son and successor of Ramesses the Great around 1213 BCE
3. A pharaoh of New Kingdom Egypt who followed his father Ramesses II to the throne and is known for the Merneptah Stele

Etymology: Merneptah was the fourth pharaoh of Egypt's Nineteenth Dynasty, the son of Ramesses II, and he reigned around 1213 to 1203 BCE. His name is an Egyptian royal name built from "mry" (beloved) and "Ptah," the god of Memphis, so it means roughly "beloved of Ptah." Names of this kind were standard for pharaohs, and the English form reflects a modern reconstruction from hieroglyphs rather than any ancient pronunciation, since Egyptian was written without most vowels. The name is famous less for its origin than for its place in the record. Merneptah's reign produced the Merneptah Stele, a granite slab discovered by Flinders Petrie in 1896 at Thebes. It contains the earliest known mention of "Israel" in any Egyptian text, which is why the king's name is often linked with biblical history, though scholars still debate how the reference should be read.